


atomic man

by spice_ghouls



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: ....adjacent, Forgiveness, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Songfic, T rating for language, but like in title only lmao, is a lot messier than many write it to be but here's my take., lucretia is my deeply morally questionable wife, lup is trying her best because she's an angel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-06
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2021-02-01 02:11:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21329881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spice_ghouls/pseuds/spice_ghouls
Summary: after you, I don't know what I believe in /after you, hell should be easythe other members of the IPRE have forgiven Lucretia, but Taako can't bring himself to. Lup is planning a dinner with all the members of the IPRE invited, and Taako tells her he doesn't want to go if Lucretia is invited. Title is from "Atomic Man" by Portugal. The Man
Relationships: Kravitz & Taako (The Adventure Zone), Kravitz/Taako (The Adventure Zone), Lup & Taako (The Adventure Zone), The Director | Lucretia & Taako
Comments: 8
Kudos: 64





	atomic man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [my sister](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=my+sister).

> thank you to Diana for making me re-listen to the stolen century because she just listened to it and got me back into Balance and finally motivated me to write this fic.

It’s mid-afternoon by the time his sister calls to ask Taako to come to dinner with the other members of the IPRE.

  
“It’s gonna be sweet! You’ll see, we can get there early, and, natch, we can do the cooking, because we’re the only ones who can make it not suck,” Lup says over the Stone of Farspeech resting on Taako’s desk.

  
“Lup,” Taako tries to interject, but she continues talking.

  
“I’ve heard Lucas helped build a new addition onto the Bureau’s kitchens last month, so we should be good to cook for everyone too, there’ll be plenty of space –“

  
“Lup, is –“

  
Not one to be deterred, Lup barrels on. “Davenport’s even cutting his latest nerd voyage short so we can all be there, it’ll be just like old times –“

  
“LUP!” Taako half-yells, exasperated.

  
Lup sighs. “Yes?”

  
“Is _she_ going to be there?” Taako asks, voice measured carefully, digging his nails into the grain of the wood of his desk.

  
Lup hesitates, and when she speaks again, her tone is reproachful. “Yes. Lucretia’s coming.”

  
Taako laughs, mirthless, a sound that dies midway out of his throat. “Hah! Nope, no, not doing that, count ‘chaboy Taako out, you guys can have a nice family reunion without me.”

  
For a moment, Lup is silent, and Taako actually thinks she may have hung up, before she says, “You two can’t do this forever.”

  
“I beg your pardon?”

  
“Like, I know, believe me, I get it, she fucked up. She knows she fucked up. God, we all know she fucked up. But –“

  
“Yeah, she sure did, Lulu.” Taako interrupts.

  
“Will you listen for a second? I’m just trying to say that I understand, and I’m not saying you have to forgive her –“

  
“Sure sounds like it –“

  
“I’m saying that you don’t have to avoid going places just because she’s also going to happen to be there. Look, you don’t even have to talk to her if you don’t want to. Would it kill you to be in the same room with her for three hours?”

  
“It fuckin – might. You don’t know,” Taako replies.

  
She sighs. “Brother dearest. What in the shit is that supposed to mean?”

  
Taako rests his face in his hands, pressing the heels of his hands into his temples. “I don’t fuckin – I don’t know. I just don’t get it.”

  
“Get what?”

  
“How the rest of you can act like nothing happened. Like we’re all good, like she didn’t fuckin’ betray a century’s worth of trust, like she didn’t come _this_ close to destroying the world because she thought she had the goddamn solution to everything and, y’know, fuck all the rest of us, right, if we happened to be in the way of her master plan. I don’t get it.”

  
Lup is silent.

  
“And that’s – that’s another thing. The rest of you all can just move on from that somehow, and like, whatever, that’s not my choice to make for you, but you know what’s not _your_ choice to make for _me_? Letting her back into my life after that shit. Fuck, Lup, I – I _forgot_ you. She took you from me. And I can’t let that go.”

  
Lup starts a sentence, and then stops herself. Through the Stone, Taako hears her take a deep breath, and exhale, before speaking.

  
“Okay.”

  
“Okay? Wh – that’s it? Okay?”

  
“Yeah. Okay. What did you think I was going to say? You’re right, I can’t make that decision for you. I just – fuck, I don’t know, Taako.”

  
Taako leans back in his desk chair. “Take your time,” he says, all the anger gone from his voice.

  
“I just keep thinking that I miss you, and I miss her, and I miss _you and her_, and – I miss not having to do this. You said you can’t understand why any of us forgave her, and I guess I can’t speak for anyone else, but would it help if I explained why I forgave her, or would that just make things worse? Because I promise you’re not the only one who had legitimate reasons to hate her.”

  
Taako shrugs. “Sure. Knock yourself out.”

  
“My whole thing was, like. We spent a hundred years together, right? I think you can’t help but love people, after that amount of time together, and you know better than anyone else that after a hundred years we were family, on that ship. And -”

  
“Yeah, no, sure, _in theory_. But as it turned out in our case, a hundred years of love weren’t enough to stop her from taking fucking _everything_ from us. Don’t you see that?”

  
“Of course, I do. I fuckin’ - Fuck, you think I don’t see that? I didn’t forgive her out of _shortsightedness_, Taako. I forgave her because I realized that I wanted that back more than I wanted to stay mad.”

  
“Lulu, that doesn’t make sense. Like, no, that sounded rude, I’m not trying to be dismissive or anything, I just literally don’t get it.”

  
“I had a right to stay mad. You do too, I get that. But I kept thinking about the way things were, back on the Starblaster, and feeling like I’d lost a sister.”

  
“You understand, though, that she’s the one who took that from you, right? That’s not your fault.”

  
“No, yeah, of course it wasn’t my fault. But I realized at some point that I wanted to try to fix that relationship, even if it wasn’t fair that I was doing it. Like, it would have been fair for me to stay angry forever. But it wasn’t about what was fair. It was about what I wanted, and what I wanted was my relationship with Lucy back, even if that meant giving up the capability I had to make things fair by continuing to punish her for what she did.”

  
Taako pauses for a moment. “Yeah, I – that’s good of you, and I get where you’re coming from now. You were always, of the two of us, the one with a moral fuckin’ compass. But I’m not you, Lup. It – I don’t trust people that easy, and it’s hard for me to just let go of anger like that when I trust someone and that gets betrayed.”

  
“Okay, that’s – first of all, that’s bullshit that I was the only one of us with a moral compass, but I get it about the trust thing. And I’m not trying to force you to forgive her, like I said. But, can I ask you to think about something?”

  
“Go for it.”

  
“Do you miss her? Like, not how she is now – try to consider the friendship you had with her before she fucked everything up.”

  
Taako’s about to insist that no, he doesn’t miss her, but the memories nag at him – the cycle where he taught Lucretia how to bake a cake, the first time Lucretia let him see her drawings, the cycle where Lucretia taught him how to paint, the cycles where they had to depend on each other to stay alive, to make it out, to live to fight the Hunger another day.

  
“What does it matter if I do or not?” he asks instead.

  
“Because if you do, I want you to think about whether or not that’s something that’s worth it to you to try to get back to. And –“ she sighs “- even if it’s not. Just, please consider coming to the dinner. We all would love to see you.” She hesitates for a moment. “I love you, Taako.”

  
And then, before he can answer, she hangs up.

  
Taako sighs when he hears the Stone shut off, tapping his fingers against his desk restlessly, before suddenly standing up, almost knocking his chair over in the process.

  
“_Fuck this_,” he mutters, grabbing his cloak from the hanger by his door, and flicking the lightswitch off. Ren looks up from her desk as he steps out of his office.

  
“You okay? I heard voices from your office.”

  
“Yeah, Taako’s all good, I just – I’m gonna go home early today, ‘kay? I’ll see you later. You’re in charge while I’m gone.”

  
Ren nods. Her face is still lined with concern, but not wanting to push the issue, she looks back down at the paperwork on her desk as Taako leaves the office.

====

When Kravitz gets home, Taako’s lost in thought, absentmindedly stirring a pot of pasta sauce without looking at it.

  
“Hey,” Kravitz says, wiping his feet on the doormat as he walks in, shifting lazily out of his reaper form as he does so.

  
Taako starts, nearly dropping his wooden spoon into the pot. “Oh! Hey, Krav. Dinner’ll be ready in a couple minutes, I got home early, so it’s almost done already. Good to see you,” he says, while deftly recovering his stirring implement from being lost in the sauce.

  
“You’re a little jumpy today,” Kravitz says, moving to stand behind Taako and wrap his arms around the smaller man’s waist. “Something on your mind?”

  
Taako stands on his tiptoes to kiss him before replying. “No, I’m – well. Yeah. But it’s not, like, anything dire or whatever. Just thinking about something Lup said earlier. We can talk about it later.”

  
“Okay. Well, if and when you want to talk about it, I’m here for you.”

  
“I – yeah. I know. Thank you.”

  
Kravitz smiles. “I’m gonna go wash up before dinner, okay?”

  
Taako nods wordlessly, returning the smile.

  
Kravitz doesn’t bring it up again until later, just as they’re finishing eating the pasta Taako made.

  
“So,” he says, “What was it that Lup said earlier that had you all zoned out, love?”

  
Taako sighs, and bites his lip, pushing the last of his pasta from one side of his plate to the other idly.

  
Kravitz looks up from his plate at Taako’s hesitancy. “If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to. Sorry.”

“No, I – it’s not that I don’t want to talk about it, it’s that I don’t really know how to. Krav, have you ever, like, had someone do something awful enough to you that you didn’t think you could ever forgive them?”

Kravitz’s face drops into a look of concern. “I don’t think so. Where is this coming from? Did Lup do something to you?”

  
“Wh – oh, no, gods, not Lup. She wouldn’t. She just called me today, and we talked about Lucretia.”

  
“Ah.” When Taako doesn’t elaborate, Kravitz prompts, “What about Lucretia?”

  
“So, Lup and Barry have this plan to get the entire IPRE back together for dinner next week. But Lucretia’s coming. And I told her I didn’t want to go if Lucretia was going to be there, because, like, fuck Lucretia. And Lup – Lup seems to think I should forgive her. Or maybe thinks I should want to forgive her? I don’t know. It’s – it’s just, a lot. You know what Lucretia did to me, and it’s just been easier for me if I keep not thinking about her and not having to talk to her.”

  
“Yeah. No, I – it’s not fair of Lup to try to pressure you into forgiving her. Do you want me to talk to her about it?”

  
Taako shakes his head. “No. It wasn’t even like she was pressuring me to forgive her, really. She just said I should think about whether or not I wanted the relationship that I used to have with Lucretia back, and she said this whole thing about how that’s why she forgave Lucretia at all. Because that relationship was more important to her than it was that she got to stay mad at Lucretia.”

  
Kravitz is quiet for a moment. “And – do you? Want that relationship back, I mean.”

  
“That’s the thing. I don’t know. I’ve been not-thinking about it for so long that it’s almost hard now to even try to think about,” he sighs, and meets Kravitz’ eyes. “Do _you_ think I should forgive her?”

  
Kravitz purses his lips, and stares up at the ceiling in thought. “I don’t really think it’s about whether or not you _should_. Lucretia hurt you enough that you have the right to do or think whatever you want, and nobody but you gets to tell you otherwise.”

  
“But, like, I mean, what do I do if Lup’s right? I don’t even know how I’d _begin_ to try to fix that fucked up of a relationship at this point.”

  
“I don’t know. But if you decide you want to, I think that’s something you two would have to figure out together,” Kravitz answers.

  
Taako nods. “Yeah. That makes sense. Gods, Krav, I just – I wish this was easier. I fuckin wish she hadn’t fucked everything up in the first place.”

  
“I know. I wish I could fix that for you. That’s not something anyone should have to carry the weight of. But, for what it’s worth, whatever you decide to do, I’ll support you in it.”

  
For the first time in the course of the conversation, Taako smiles. “Thank you. I love you, you know.”

  
“I love you too.” Kravitz gets up from the table, walking over to put his plate in the sink. “Hey, you up for some post-dinner Fantasy Mario Kart? Take your mind off things?”

  
“Oh, you’re _on_. I’m going to kick your ass.”

====

When he can’t sleep that night, Taako slips out of bed, careful not to wake Kravitz, and sits for the better part of an hour by the Stone of Farspeech, wanting to call someone, to talk to anyone about this, but not knowing who to call.

  
He could call Magnus, he’d probably be awake, but Magnus forgave Lucretia almost immediately after everything went down, and Taako doesn’t think he’d understand what he’s going through. Merle might have a better shot at getting where he’s coming from, but Pan knows the dwarf never answers his Stone of Farspeech when they call. Lup and Barry aren’t an option – their work for the Raven Queen is “Fun as shit, but like, fucking exhausting,” according to Lup, and they’re certain to be catching some much-needed shut-eye by this time of night. Davenport… Davenport might understand. Fuck, Davenport got fucked over even worse than him, arguably, when Lucretia erased their memories. Surely, Davenport would understand him.

  
Mind made up, Taako touches his Stone and channels his thoughts towards Davenport, and a moment later he hears the stone ringing.

  
And ringing.

  
After fifteen seconds or so of this, the ringing cuts off and Davenport’s fantasy answering machine crackles to life. “Hello there! It’s me, Davenport, I, uh, I couldn’t come to the Stone right now, please leave a message, and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible! Thanks!” This message is followed by a beep, and then silence, which Taako responds to by hanging up in disappointment. _Fuck_.

  
Not one to be easily deterred, he tries again, only to be met with the same response. Taako’s brow furrows in frustration.

  
Well. There is someone else he could call. She would probably pick up, too. The thought makes his heart race. He reaches for the Stone, and then pulls his hand back.  
He can’t do it. He can’t call Lucretia. The thought of hearing her voice, of being reminded of everything she did to him – she took Lup from him, for fuck’s sake. She took _Lup_, took even the _memory_ of Lup. What the fuck was he thinking? He can’t forgive that. No one could forgive that, he can’t expect himself to forgive that, even if he wants to.

  
But – gods. It had been Lup in the first place who had asked him to consider it. He sighs, turning and pacing away from the Stone of Farspeech, and then walking back to glare at it sitting innocuously on the kitchen counter. Fucking Stone. Fucking Stone, fucking Lucretia, fucking Lup fucking up the good fucking thing he had going of not fucking thinking about Lucretia.

  
Maybe he could bring himself to call Lucretia just so he could tell Lup he tried and be done with it. He reaches for the stone once again, only to pull his hand back again, this time uncertain of what’s stopping him.

  
After a moment frozen like that, he shakes his head, as if to clear his thoughts like an etch-a-sketch. No, if he’s going to do this, he has to actually try. Taking a breath to steel his nerves, Taako places his finger on the Stone of Farspeech, directing his thoughts towards Lucretia.

  
The Stone rings once, twice, and then – a _click_ as someone on the other end picks up.

  
“Hello?” Lucretia says, a little groggy, as if Taako’s call had woken her.

  
Taako tries to think of something to say. He tries to make his mouth form words, to question, to apologize, to accuse, to forgive, to – to do _anything_. But he can’t make himself say even a syllable of it. Whatever thoughts he’d had of reconciliation or even communication have left his mind, and he’s just rendered speechless upon hearing her voice, the voice of his friend, his family, his betrayer.

  
“Hello?” Lucretia asks again, more an annoyed question than a greeting this time.

  
Taako realizes that if he doesn’t say anything, she’s going to hang up, and this is the thought that finally jump-starts his speech – he doesn’t have a plan for what he’s going to say before he says it, he just starts talking.

  
“Do you remember the cycle on that world with the ice giants? Where we had to spend all that time cooped up on the ship together and the whole crew was just going stir-crazy?”

  
He thinks he hears her start to say something – to make some noise of confusion, or assent, or maybe just shock that he’s contacting her after so long, or something, but he’s started talking now and he has no intention of stopping.

  
“The cycle where you tried to teach me and Davenport how to paint, just to keep us from dying of boredom? Davenport was never any good at it but I thought I’d gotten pretty good by the end of the cycle and I never really kept it up, but, you know, ha, Taako’s good, I’ve got other talents.”

  
He doesn’t know what he’s saying – rambling, really, if he’s being honest, but he keeps going before Lucretia can get a word in edgewise.

  
“Anyways I bought a paint set two weeks ago on a whim. And, I just kept getting frustrated at first because I couldn’t do it. I guess I lost too much of that particular repertoire when I – when you – fuck, you know. With the voidfish. And it hasn’t come back – so like, thanks for that, I guess. But I just keep remembering that cycle, when you kept saying that it takes work to paint, to make things good.”

  
He pauses to take a breath, and finally Lucretia manages to speak, but it’s only to say “Taako, I don’t –“ before he’s off again, and maybe it’s all the time he’s spent not talking to her, but he’s struck with a need to finish saying this, to deliver this rabbit-trail of a speech that started off as a bad idea and ended up as a worse one.

  
“Sorry, I don’t really know why I called, this was – whatever. Whatever. I’m – I’m going to try to start painting again. That’s what I called to say, I guess. And I’m going to fucking suck at it, and I don’t know where I’m going to start, but, uh – as it turns out it’s something I missed and – I get that it’s going to take work for it to be any good again, and I think I’m going to try to do it anyway. I think it’s worth trying to start again anyway.”

  
There’s silence on the other end, a moment of – what? Bewilderment? Scorn? Confusion? Taako doesn’t know, and he hangs up before he gets the chance to find out.

He buries his head in his hands for a moment, and then heads back to bed, sparing a glance to the watercolor set sitting on the desk in the corner, and then crawling into bed next to Kravitz and casting Sleep on himself before he can do anything else fucking stupid tonight like cry.

====

The days that lead up to the dinner Lup has planned at the Bureau headquarters go by in a blur. If he heard any part of the late-night call Taako made that night, Kravitz has the tact to not mention it, and Taako doesn’t volunteer anything about it. But mostly Taako just works, and he runs his business, and he keeps his mind off things. Lucretia, blessedly, hasn’t called him back. He doesn’t know what he would say if she did.

  
And then it’s the night before the dinner, and he still hasn’t made up his mind about whether or not to go. Lup calls him, and he doesn’t pick up – he knows what she’s calling to ask, and he doesn’t have an answer for her yet.

  
He sits down at his desk and makes himself a list of the pros and cons of going.

_Pros: see the whole gang again, make and eat some bomb ass food, maybe reconcile a little with Lucretia (big maybe)_

_Cons: Have to face seeing Lucretia, probably make things worse with Lucretia, probably make everyone else’s night suck major ass because I made things worse with Lucretia._

He finds himself staring at the list and re-reading it until the words jumble together into meaningless blobs. This is getting him nowhere. Taako crumples the list.

His Stone of Farspeech rings again, and he sighs. He should at least answer Lup, if only to tell her that he doesn’t know yet.

He picks up. “Heya, Lulu. Listen, I – “

“I remember that cycle,” the voice on the other end of the line says, and Taako freezes.

“The one you were talking about,” Lucretia clarifies, and her voice sounds quieter than usual, meek, almost as if she’s afraid of him. But that’s ridiculous, it’s not like she has anything to be afraid of. “I don’t – I know you don’t want to hear it, because it doesn’t fix anything, so I won’t say I’m sorry that the voidfish –“ she stops, and corrects herself. “That _I_ took that from you, that how to paint wasn’t one of the memories that returned to you. But if you want, I can try to teach you again.” She takes a shaky breath. “Apologies can’t fix what I broke and what I took from you and I will regret that until I die. But I can try to help with this. This is a thing I can do. If you’ll let me.”

  
And… this is what Taako had been hoping to avoid. If it were up to him he’d fuck right off into some other plane of existence right now, and never have to make decisions like this, about whether or not to let people like her back into his life, even in this little way.

At the mention of the voidfish and what she did, he feels once again the fury well up in him, but then even that anger is drowned out by the memory of her guiding his paintbrush across a canvas, their friendship a single, arresting light in a cycle that had been cold and dark and unforgiving, the memory of them laughing when Davenport spilled the whole pot of red paint down his shirt, the memory of the first time he made something he was proud of under her tutelage, the dozens of cycles and years’ worth of memories he has with her.

  
And he realizes that he wants that back.

  
What had Lup said?

  
_Even if it means giving up the capability to make things fair by continuing to punish her for what she did._

  
“I’d like that,” Taako replies quietly. “I uh, I think I have a call to make, actually. Talk to you later?”

  
“Wh – oh, yes, of course, sorry. I’ll talk to you later, Taako?” she asks it like a question, genuine bewilderment and hope in her voice.

  
“Talk to you later,” he repeats, and hangs up.

  
The next call he makes is to Lup.

  
“Hey, sis. So, uh. I’m going to need you to set a place for me at the table for dinner tomorrow after all.”

**Author's Note:**

> please leave comments god im so thirsty


End file.
